It is desirable for vehicle closures, especially those on utility vehicles such as trucks and SUVs, to be able to open completely clear of the body opening and thereby provide unobstructed access to a vehicle's interior. Such access allows large items, up to the size of the opening, to be more easily placed into and removed from the vehicle. The ability of a closure to clear its body opening completely is generally determined by the configuration of the hinges used to attach and hang the closure to the vehicle body.
For styling and aerodynamic benefits, many vehicles require concealment of hinges when the closures are shut. To meet this requirement, the hinge must be contained inboard of the closure outer panel and within the depth of the vehicle body. For concealed hinges that have a single pivot axis, it is highly likely that the door's travel will be limited to approximately 90 degrees. This is due to 2 major factors, a) the closure cutline swing path clashing with the actual hinge, and b) the section of the closure outboard of the pivot axis having an inboard component of travel when exceeding 90 degrees.
As a result, if the door travels past 90 degrees, the door will come into contact with the side of the vehicle body (or more preferably the door is limited in travel prevent it from coming into contact with the vehicle body). This is due to the hinge pivot point possessing a minimal rotational radius and being positioned so that an exterior-facing portion of the door is placed ahead of the hinge's rotational path, where it can meet a corresponding exterior-facing portion of the vehicle body within the hinge's rotational path. In this position, many vehicle doors fail to completely clear the doorway; a door travel in excess of 90 degrees is needed to completely clear the doorway.
A simple hinge can be employed to provide greater than 90 degrees of travel if the hinge pivot point is placed outside the surface of the vehicle body and door when in a closed position, provided that no portion of the door and body side curve or protrude out past the hinge pivot. In this position, although the rotational radius of the hinge remains unchanged, no portion of the door is ahead of the hinge's rotational path. While this hinge configuration allows the vehicle doors to travel well past 90 degrees and is compact in size, the pivot portion of the hinge is visible from the vehicle exterior, leaving it vulnerable to potential damage and forming a snag hazard. A visible hinge is also often undesirable from an aesthetic point of view.
Various hinges have been developed over the years to allow vehicle doors to exceed 90 degrees of travel while providing a clean appearance with no portion of the hinge visible when the door is closed. For example, a “gooseneck” hinge, so named because its shape resembles a curved goose's neck, is used to move the door pivot point further away from the door and into the vehicle body and/or frame. This effectively increases the rotational radius of the hinge so that the door rotates around a wide enough path so that the vehicle body is not encountered in the rotational path until well past 90 degrees of travel. The hinge's relatively large radius provides a degree of outward lateral translation while the door is opening.
However, gooseneck hinges are not entirely satisfactory for the range of applications in which they are employed. For example, gooseneck hinges, because they move the door pivot point further away from the door outer surface, require relatively deep cuts into the adjacent body and/or frame. These cuts can potentially weaken the frame structure, thus necessitating structural reinforcement, which adds weight and cost to the vehicle construction. Further, employing a gooseneck hinge places limits on the configuration of the adjacent body and/or frame, as it will need to be accommodated in the door closed position; a gooseneck hinge cannot be employed when there is insufficient adjacent vehicle structure.
Thus, there exists a need for hinges useful for vehicle applications that improve upon and advance the design of known hinges that allow vehicle doors to clear adjacent body structure and open past 90 degrees. Examples of new and useful hinges relevant to the needs existing in the field are discussed below.
Disclosure addressing one or more of the identified existing needs is provided in the detailed description below. French patent publication FR2736380 is relevant to parallel dual pivoting laterally translating hinges and discloses a hinge with dual pivot points that translates laterally by action of a set of gears that surround and are attached to one pivot point.